Buck: Vote for me 'because I do not wear high heels'

By Ben Smith

07/21/10 05:30 PM EDT

The Colorado Republican Senate primary took a strange turn into gender politics yesterday, when candidate Ken Buck — seen in the clip above — told a questioner at a campaign stop that she should vote for him "because I do not wear high heels."

Buck was apparently responding to his rival Jane Norton's recent ad blaming him for independent attacks on her.

"You'd think he'd be man enough to do it himself," she says in the ad.

The connection isn't immediately clear in the video, in which he responded to a simple question from a woman in the audience.

"Why should you vote for me? Because I do not wear high heels," he said, to laughter and some apparent confusion.

"She has questioned my manhood. I think it's fair to respond," he explained. "I have cowboy boots. They have real bulls*** on them."

A longer video containing the snippet above, both provided by a Republican operative, can be seen here. The primary is Aug. 10 in a race that has a mail-in ballot and that seems to be getting interesting.

UPDATE: Buck spokesman Owen Loftus e-mails, "Obviously, the comment was made in jest after Jane questioned Ken's 'manhood' in her new ad. The Norton campaign has routinely commented about her being a good choice because she is a woman, and [on ]her choice of shoes."